AlanM

haha, did you just call them, Coral Hind? The guy I'm talking to said someone else just called like 5 min ago asking for 1.5" spaflex.

Sweet! I'll give them a call. I like going out by the airpark. Lots of cool stuff out there.

I'd already hit submit when I saw your reply and the submission said it went to the site admin, which I assume is the webmaster, rather than anyone involved in content. Basically I asked them if the authors of http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/aafeature could be contacted to do it with corrected math, and I told them that light attenuation in water obeys the Beer-Lambert law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer-Lambert_Law which those guys would need to use to estimate light at depth.

Great to have someone with such a history in the club. I was just going to send in feedback to Advanced Aquarist on their "Light in the Reef Aquarium" article by the Russian guys last year. I really liked the article, but the math is all wrong. Light attenuates exponentially in water, not linearly.

I want to get some 1.5" flexible schedule 40 PVC pipe, normally called spaflex if a local store has it. Lowes near me has 1" spaflex, but that's all. I can order it from flexpvc.com, but it's $30 shipping for the 10 feet I need. Is it available from any fish stores or hardware stores?

I think fish prefer RC Cola. I do. If it doesn't work out and you wanted to go nicer than trash cans you could put your DI and SW in these: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?sku=10402&catid=958

OK. Will go look at HD too.

Here is the stuff that Lowes has right now. It isn't the same as Ousnakebyte's talk, but some folks on the RC thread say it works the same. Tom, is this what you use or do you use the Home Pest stuff he used?

I trade in cylinders to Roberts once a month. They refilled one for me a year ago when i showed up at their production facility near the train tracks, but they were grumpy about it. If youre ever in Hyattsville you can get it filled at F and M Fire protection. Fandmfire.com is the website. They will fill while you wait. They have lots of antique extinguishers to check out while you wait too. Like a museum.

Heh. I dont think its as blue as you think it is. The violets are nearly invisible, supposedly, but also supposedly hit some photo pigment peaks. 2:1 royal to neutral white isnt that unusual, and the goal is to get the rest to combine to make white. R+G+B = W

I just got a box of parts! My wife said that a "ridiculously huge box" just arrived from LEDGroupBuy.com. I ordered a 36 inch MakersLED heatsink and a bunch of solderless LEDs and 60 degree lenses. 30 royal blue XT-E's (452nm), 15 Neutral White XT-E's (4500k), 12 Cool Blue XP-E (475nm), 9 Deep Red 660nm Exotics, 9 Turquiose Exotics (495nm), 6 True Violet Exotics (405nm), 6 Hyper Violet Exotics (430nm). I have all of the other parts except for the controller interface to convert 0-10V from the Apex into PWM for the Meanwell LDD drivers. Stevesleds has a new version of their interface coming out today and shipping tomorrow, so I've ordered those. The nice thing about that is that it has an onboard voltage regulator so you can feed it anything from 5v to 35v, and it will run. I'd like it better if it had a 70v regulator so I could feed it directly from my 48V power supply, but oh well. I'll run 6 channels from the Apex through Steve's aquarium controller interface and have 2 variable ports left over for the two Tunze powerheads. I got the Apex connected last night, updated the firmware to 4.20 for the snazzy new dashboard, got email notifications working and got my no-ip.com name, so I can look at it from anywhere with iPad. Now I just have to build a stand and plumb this tank.

Awesome! Thanks for the offer. Edit: By the way, I hope I didn't already mess it up. I couldn't resist and had the Tunze control box open with the multimeter probing stuff and the powerhead sitting on the floor out of the water. I plugged it in and measured voltages. At some point I touched something with the leads of the multimeter and the sound changed. I watched to see if any magic smoke came out of anything, but didn't see or smell anything weird. fingers crossed that I didn't already mess up my nice powerhead.

From a fish store point of view i wish ilived in Northern, VA. From a traffic point of view, not so much. 8)

Right, whoever gets it, I can help get it out of Montgomery Village. Just if someone local gets it I can also help get it out of the truck at the other end. 8)

Thanks for the offer, hypertech, but going to Alexandria is a longer trip than Annandale for me. Going to see if I can get Steve and Vince to check for that extra one in one of their moving boxes. 8)

There you go. Someone in Montgomery Village. Reef addict, if you end up getting it and needing help moving it on the 24th, I can probably assist.

Good point. 500 dollars of Apex and 500 dollars of Tunze risked over a 20 dollar cable is silly. I will try to get one from QR if they have an extra, and I will do a continuity test and post the results all over the intarwebs.

Roger, not Richard. Was thinking of the TampaBaySaltwater guy.

I would love to get it and donate it to our child care center, but as cool as it would be, a tank this size is an ongoing financial committment that would be hard to justify. We would have to hire weekly trips by Rob to keep it going.

That's part of the reason. Also Richard at Tunze USA says that every controllable Tunze made has the same interface, and that there was some confusion with the 6055 in that manual, but it isnt wired any different. From what the manual says it is totally different. Also, one of the pins on the Tunze powerhead actually puts out a continuous 8V to power the Tunze controller, and Richard seems to say that the 8V output is on one of the pins that the Apex manual says is ground! I definitely dont want to hook up an 8v power supply to the 0-10v output of the Apex. Then there is the confusion with how to count the pins which is frustrating. Even if someone gets them in the right order and says that their diagram is for a male plug, not a female socket, you still run into some people numbering them while looking at the back of the male socket where you would solder on wires if you were attaching it the connector and some people numbering them while looking at the pins like in the picture I posted. I think I will open the little box on the Tunze and look at the back of the female DIN socket to see if i can figure out what is what. I would just buy the $20 cable, but Neptune also wants $10 in shipping. for $30 I'm willing to keep investigating.

It is preserved, but folks on the forums say its wrong. I wired my cable like that and am afraid to plug it in.

Here's a picture of the male end of the cable coming from the Apex. I'm trying to sort out what pins are used.

Is anyone running a 6095 on an Apex? I followed the Apex comprehensive manual to make a cable for the Tunze pumps to be controlled by a VDM, but now it seems that might be wrong. Does anyone know the correct pinouts on the Tunze to control it?

Looks like they don't want you buying hammerheads or white tips for your tanks anymore. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21741648 I think I've heard that they're not reef-safe though. 8)

Going the other way is easy. I bet Rob could just tip it over the railing by himself.